Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh): Breastfeeding is the best way to provide essential nutrition to babies. World Breastfeeding Week is observed every year from 1 to 7 August with an initiative to encourage breastfeeding and improve the health of babies around the world.
Efforts are made to make mothers aware of breastfeeding. Many events are organized by the government in this direction through which the importance of breastfeeding can be explained.
In the same row, the 'Breastfeeding Week Program' is being organized at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Medical Hospital, Jabalpur. Rangoli competition is organised in the hospital premises to commemorate the breastfeeding week.
Breastfeeding can reduce infant mortality. Simple bacteria that come from mother's milk thrive in the baby's gut and do not allow them to grow by competing with microbes.
Mother's milk contains germicidal substances. Environmentally transmitted microbes in the mother's intestines come into contact with specific parts of the gut, creating antibodies against those particular microbes. These nutrition reach the mother's breast directly through a special tube called the thoracic duct and through the milk into the baby's stomach.
In this way the child is always healthy by drinking mother's milk. Children who do not get enough of breast milk in childhood are more likely to develop childhood-onset diabetes. The development of intelligence in those children is comparatively less than that of the milk-fed children. If the baby is born prematurely, he may develop necrotizing enterocolitis, a fatal disease of the large intestine. Therefore, mother's milk is not only the best for the child for six-eight months, but it is also life-saving.
